Week 5
It is the end of week 5 already, and with the exception of storms and windy weather last weekend (ie Open Day!) the weather has been very kind to us all through the season. We have had hot temperatures, lots of clear blue skies with little in the way of breeze. Too hot for some but we have adapted our work to take this into account by having longer breaks some days and making sure everyone takes on plenty of water, wears a hat, applies sunscreen, and doesn’t over-exert themselves. Some have chosen not to spend all day on trench and have helped elsewhere in finds or enviro.
This week started last Sunday, with our annual Open Day. The weather wasn’t kind to us, but then again we may have had more visitors as it wasn’t the day for sitting on one of the many glorious beaches up on the coast. We had a steady stream of visitors throughout the day, and John was kept busy doing very informative and entertaining talks and site tours. We also had the visitors centre / human remains / anglo saxon reenactors / children’s digging area / animal bones and finds displays / tombola / raffle and cream teas to give you a taste of stalls and events. Everyone worked really hard to make it a successful day and we raised just over £1100, so thank you to all those who assisted in making the day run smoothly, and thank you to all our visitors.
In addition to the Open Day we had a BERT and and photogrammetry course running. The photogrammetry course is one of our new courses this year. The students chose Sedgeford Church as their subject and have been busy taking loads of photos that have been manipulated by software to produce a 3D image of their subject. Results were revealed at the end of the week during this week's round up, and were pretty impressive. Please click here and here to view. It is intended to run the course next year, so if you missed out this year, book early to secure your place on next year's course.
We also had a visit this week from several members of the North West Norfolk History Society, who were given a tour by John Jolleys and shown the latest, excellent magnetometry results.
This week's lecture was given by Tess Machlin and Roland Williamson, entitled ‘Banging on about Torcs’ – looking at the technology of the Iron Age. They have undertaken detailed research on the Newark and Netherurd Gold Torcs in an attempt to establish how they were made. These torcs have such similar patternation that they must have been made by the same person. They were made of sheet metal as the detailing is just too fine for them to have been cast. Examination of the Sedgeford torc has shown that this torc was cast and that the terminals were probably cast on. However, x-ray work by the British Museum Science Department has shown that in fact the Sedgeford torc was manufactured using separately cast terminals, attached using a very precise fixing method of snuggly fitting cast sections secured by rods.
Keeping on the theme of gold, next week's lecture will be given by our own Dr Ellie Blakelock. Ellie will be discussing the latest ideas on the Staffordshire Hoard. The lecture starts at 19:30 in St Mary’s Church, Sedgeford.
Next week we have two courses running, Archaeometallurgy, and a new Non-Invasive and Landscape Archaeology course, places are still available on both courses.
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